Absolute One is a project which began with the proposal to
highlight the differences which still exist in forms of cultural
and artistic expression flourishing in the so-called "non-Western"
countries, in which a market still in a phase of adjustment
- and in certain cases still inexistent - plays an important
role in the development not only of the arts, but generally
in man/object relations. It is an approach which is still
in subtle contrast to Western politics, and is seen as a model
to imitate, even if it is often acquired as an imposed formula
from which it is impossible to escape if it is to be used
within specific economic and cultural parameters. Yet however
interesting the argument may seem, we have realised that it
was impossible to confront it without examining the global
process taking place which is changing the habits and actions
of people all over the world. A kind of industrial revolution,
even if ours could be defined as the information technology
or information revolution, which provokes a sense of continual
and frenetic movement and change. However, every so often
we ask ourselves if all of this isn't merely an illusion which
is hiding a centuries-old immobility, extremely productive
exclusively for a restricted group of people. We have therefore
asked experts from various branches of human knowledge, to
hear the opinions of economists, philosophers, sociologists,
art critics, and artists who have allowed us to have a view,
albeit a small and limited one, of the various readings that
this phenomenon is establishing. All of these views have been
brought together on a web site where anyone who wants to interact
and express their own opinions is welcome (www.absoluteone.exibart.it
or www.absoluteone.ljudmila.org).
The need to discuss the topic with academics from various
fields is a consequence of the knowledge that it is difficult
to separate artistic practice from those relationships in
a phase of fluid elaboration, between politics, economics,
and technology, and the function art assumes in this context.
In some of the gathered texts and interviews in the catalogue
we come across enthusiastic interpretations concerning the
possibilities offered by technological development, thanks
to which it is possible to reach information and create a
network of extremely fertile collaboration, which just a few
years ago would have been slow to develop or downright impossible.
In others we notice a general diffidence about the homologisation
of the arts in a language so powerful and unequivocal as the
economic/technological apparatus. In the future will it still
be possible for art to preserve at least a few of its many
meanings linked to a determined way of life or culture in
a global environment which tends towards the rationalisation
of exchange? This facilitation in cultural exchange becomes
a stimulating tool which, however, makes us reconsider certain
positions, for example the position of museum institutions.
These essentially cannot be reduced to being places in which
objects of art are accumulated, but somehow not only have
to actively try to relate to the artists and their working
context, which often falls outside the pre-defined frames
of these structures, but also rethink the way in which contemporary
art works are exhibited, seeing as it frequently makes use
of the possibilities offered by modern technology. Let's take
Vuk Ćosić as an example, who has been one of the pioneers
of net art, an expressive form divulged through the web and
which uses the languages of it. It has become a world in which
even the destiny of an art which not only is related to thousand-year-old
and symbolic tradition, but which at the same time searches
for a comparison with the contemporary context and with that
part of human action determined by economic power and global
technology. In spite of museums and institutions today competing
to commission works on the net, these could and can live without
the presence of an exhibition space, in fact they make use
of the advantages that no other "container" of an art work
manages to have. A practically total global diffusion happening
contemporaneously, now and everywhere. The classic exhibition
space in this sense is no longer necessary, but the "museum"
moves in a virtual space in which the artist's work is shown.
What is paradoxical is that following the traditional market
forms, the works created for the net are put on sale, exhibitions
and auctions are organised, all in the form of the most classic
market, coming up against contradictions, such as the problem
of copyright. How do we find where the borders are between
what is actually a work of art and what is a copy?! This is
a question which was perfectly identified by a group of artists
called 0011010010101.ORG. when in 1999, "they appropriated"
the site hell.com, where an exhibition of net art took place
for those few possessors of the password, which they freely
broadcast. This act of piracy carried out by 001 (we'll abbreviate)
has put the finger on the problem not only concerning net
art, but any art form which is reproduced hundreds of times,
which uses expressive forms such as video, web, posters and
so on. In the end, some actions and gestures lacking in the
consistency of the object and therefore not saleable, nowadays
are of more artistic impact because they work by penetrating
directly in the information circuit. Yet obviously the art
market has to find something to exchange, trade, transform
into money, and therefore it is vital to create market forms
even for situations and events which were the fruit of an
antithetical spirit. A typical example was the historical
process of the Fluxus group, famous for their performances,
moments of intense energy, which had to remain recorded by
memory, or at the most recorded on video. Today the fragments
remaining from these events can also be found in museum catalogues,
galleries, and above all can be bought at an exorbitant price.
It is the law of the market, in which even information produces
a profit, merchandising events which happen by chance. These
are actual processes created and distributed by means of communication,
which hold immense power, in which only news with certain
ingredients are able to overcome the barriers imposed by the
fixed rules: to be able to gain the attention of a wide audience.
Thus it is of fundamental importance to appropriate situations
which could be psychic bombs and even produce money. Even
the character of Darko Maver, invented at the design table
by 001.ORG, had all the right ingredients: a Serbian artist
coming from a country at war, a tragic history, with a final
tragic death. Thus he was able to enter not only the information
circuit, but also the art one. Everybody knew Maver, even
if nobody had ever seen him. What was important was the news
and the most precious commodity of contemporaneity, which
is sold at a higher price than any other product, representing
the best visiting card for overcoming any barrier, even the
apparent diffidence of the artistic world. Therefore, even
is art makes use of the facilitations offered by technological
development, even if artists are often able to express themselves
with the means and languages produced by new inventions, it
is fundamental that art is not identified with technology,
but that technology always remains an instrument, not the
aim. In fact, there are no enigmas that technology is able
to reveal, but art can! And this is its role today, in spite
of the technology on the horizon. Therefore, if the artist
finds his/herself living in a situation in which his/her interests
lead towards situations lying outside those of the global
market, or outside market logic which is annulling differences
and heading towards a simplifying homologisation, s/he must
open up a space for being different within such a system.
By working in a totally economic and technological environment,
art has to find its relationship with man's older and more
archaic traditions and situations. Only by doing this can
it underline the relation and interdependency, but also the
fundamental difference between artistic work and economic
business. The work of Tadej Pogačar, director of the PARASITE
Museum, and an exponent of new parasitism, wants to be a way
of giving space to all those who work outside of the legally
recognised economies: the homeless, tramps, prostitutes. He
himself represents a structure which does not produce money,
seeing as he always has to behave as a parasite, relying on
other people's circumstances. The icon, for example, a reference
to the project created for the Biennale, is hosted by various
places across the city, thus becoming exhibition spaces, but
also the site of exploitation by this new parasitical entity!
However, if the icon represents a form of utilisation of alternative
spaces by the artist, transforming them into temporary museums,
the gesture of collaborating with the union for the civil
rights of prostitutes around the world assumes another meaning.
Prostitution has always been a parallel universe, governed
by its own rules, which have no connection with the "official"
economic system, and which adapts itself with difficulty to
the rules of a global market. In a certain sense prostitution
and art find themselves in the same situation, and raise questions
about how those working in these environments can be safeguarded
from the rules of a global market. Therefore Tadej Pogačar's
work, as well as being an opportunity for giving a voice to
this category, is also a means of highlighting and drawing
attention to those worlds which continue to gravitate outside
of global reasoning. On the contrary, you could say that for
some of these categories it is necessary to maintain a form
of inadequacy with regard to technology which only the human
possesses in order to continue to exist. In effect they free
the view, the reflection and intuition for that entity which
is man and his economic and artistic history, confronting
the total stasis which the utopian world, dominated by the
rationality of technology and sustained by global economic
policy, would like to establish. AURORA FONDA